Urban Analysis and Development

Urban analysis and development studies for the area of the Santa Chiara Hospital in the city of Pisa (Italy): a comparison between different redevelopment options 1 Sergio Mattia*, Alessandra Oppio**, Alessandra Pandolfi***

* Department of Architecture and Planning (Di.A.P.), Via Bonardi n. 3, Politecnico di Milano ([email protected]) ** Department of Building Environment Sciences and Technology (Best), Via Bonardi n. 9, Politecnico di Milano ([email protected])

1. Introduction

This paper represents an excerpt of the theses of the I cycle of the Master in “Real Estate Finance and Development – Part Time” and concerns the projects prepared for the International Town Planning Competition announcement called “Urban redevelopment of the University Hospital of Santa Chiara, facing Piazza dei Miracoli”, promulgated from the Town Council of Pisa (by the Building standards and urban redevelopment office of the Town planning division) in 2007 and developed through an only phase with pre-selection. The Competition terms have been accepted by 40 architecture design groups (of which, 10 have been selected for the following project pre-design stage 2) in order to solve the urban planning “conflict” emerged between the hospital uses of the involved area and the symbol of the Township of Pisa, the Unesco site of Piazza dei Miracoli, on which the Santa Chiara pole overlooks. The essential requirement of the International Competition was the selection of the best design idea on the basis of some fundamental principles, particularly referring to the capability of the scheduled investments to create value: therefore, the primary purpose of the Master theses was to evaluate the extent to which every project meets different levels of economical and financial balance. The area took up by the Santa Chiara complex is more than 10 hectares wide and it is placed in the heart of the old town of the city of Pisa, immediately nearby the Cathedral dome square, listed in the Unesco sites as World Heritage. On this kind of qualification depends the need for a Management plan that could take into account not only the demand for the preservation of the cultural heritage, but also its correct use in the wider cultural, social and economical context. The Management plan should be enlarged to an appropriate surrounding area of adequate size, referring to the reciprocal influence between the site and its framework, not only considered as respect area, but also as service zone or as space that could take an advantage from the monumental presence. The Santa Chiara Hospital area is very close to the square, therefore, it should be absolutely considered by the Management plan of the site. The Redevelopment plan of the Hospital and University area should then consider both the monumental presence and the complexity of functions, referring to services and actual or predictable “pressures” in the historical surroundings; consequently, it will or should become an important part of the Unesco Management plan (cf. the Competition materials, 2007). The Santa Chiara Hospital and University complex has been developed since the year 1257 and it has always been intended for hospital and university uses; referring to the plans of the actual Administration, this area will be disused and redeveloped, whereas the functions originally set in this place will be relocated in the Cisanello district, a quarter, identified on purpose, in a part of the city that is more suitable to receive the specific features of the displaced functions. Moreover, the design of the redevelopment plan has been elaborated to be consistent to the directives on the drawing up of management plans of Unesco sites. As a matter of fact, the importance of the Santa Chiara area for the city of Pisa is actually strategic, as it represents the opportunity both of developing the city center out of the Piazza dei Miracoli pole and of enlarging and emphasizing the old town characteristics, creating new

1. This study has been developed with Arch. Maria Mattia, Arch. Federica Pedroni and Eng. Massimiliano Tromba, that contributed in the writing and editing of the master thesis that is described in this essay. 2 For knowledge aims, the names of the 10 groups selected for the final phase are reported: Luigi Snozzi Architetto; Metrogramma: Arch. Alberto Francini; Arch. Giorgio Grassi Associati; Allies and Morrison; Arch. Carlo Magnani St. Architer; David Chipperfield Architects L.T.D.; Oriol Bohigas; Arch. Cino Zucchi; Arch. Gian Piero Buffi; Canali Associati s.r.l. relationships and increasing the value of the elements that today are the symbols for the urban environment of latent and unexpressed values. The International Town Planning Competition took place through a restricted procedure and consisted of an only phase, anticipated simply from a pre-selection stage (developed in the so-called “open form”), planned in order to select the participants, open to all the groups that met the requirements pointed out in the competition announcement. The so-called “single competition stage” is anonymous and it consists in the drawing up of the design of the redevelopment plan in accordance with the requirements involved in the call and it was reserved to up to ten applicants, selected during the pre-selection stage as previously described. The winner (the project elaborated from the group of David Chipperfield) received a prize of 100.000,00 €.

Bocca d’Arno Port G. Galilei Airport Intervention area

Arno River Cisanello Hospital Economy area of San Cataldo

Bechi Luserna barrack Navicelli quarter Old town Ospedaletto quarter Old town area Former streetcar Pisa-Livorno line

Fig. 1 – The urban area of Pisa (Reference: Bohigas, 2007)

The consciousness of this chance to redevelop the Santa Chiara Hospital area emerges clearly both from the materials of the Competition announcement and, first of all, from the town planning documentation that dealt with the area of Pisa and particularly with its old town 3: an unique opportunity for such a unique city. As a matter of fact, the hospital complex of Santa Chiara represents an exemplary slice of the history of the city of Pisa, from the Middle Ages up until now, whose first nucleus is the Campo dei Miracoli square, though its placement in the urban system is unexpected 4. The old Misericordia Hospital could be assumed as the symbolic relationship between two urban metaphors: the sacred city (where the salvation viaticum comes true from the earth Jerusalem to the heavenly Jerusalem that, with its de niveo marmore volumes, represents a sort of revelation after death) and the actual centre (made of stones and bricks), that stretches to South and South-East. Moreover, the role of imaginary core 5 given to Piazza dei Miracoli is really singular, as it is at the border of the old urban centre: the centrality of this place is equivalent, actually, to the lack of a real central polarity, of a square that acts as urban catalyst (as verified in many Italian and European cities), replaced from a linear central area that twists and turns through two extreme poles, Piazza dei Miracoli and the Railway Station (in between of which the symbolic center of the political power, the Municipality offices, is located, overlooking on the

3. The objective given from the Public Administration through the programming documentation concerns the drawing up of a unitary project decided for the urban scale development and adapted both to the importance of the area and to the interest that the relationships between the area and the rest of the city will assume. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. 4. Actually, Piazza dei Miracoli is not the real center of the city, even if it is its symbolic fulcrum (being physically placed just outside the real monumental area, although it is less famous then the Leaning Tower esplanade): as paradigm of the globality and of the punctual hierarchy of values, the entire monumental system expresses the capability of symbolizing and ordering profane and eternal spaces and times, as shown by the Cosmogony (painted in the Holy area), the seasons sculptures carved in the Baptistery doorposts and the metronimic meaning of the bell tower. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. 5. The objective of this complex operation should be putting to regime the presence of the “high quality and planetary level calamity” (as Salvatore Settis defined the monumental complex of the Piazza dei Miracoli) and of the ascertained vocation to become symbol city of culture and scientific training with the different historical and typological souls, recognizable within the area. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. Arno river, near Ponte di Mezzo – an important bridge). Near to the cathedral dome square, the hospes peregrinorum marks out the limits with the distribution and organization system of the city; conceived since the XIII century as a fortified monastic citadel, it is identified with a solid volume in the networks of vegetable gardens, that only in the last centuries have been filled with the advancing of the hospital structures 6. Referring to this dialectic, the redevelopment plans for the existing built complex have been elaborated in order to create new relationships with the Campo dei Miracoli square, completing the “framework” formed by the different linear horizontal architectural systems of the walls, of the Holy area and of the Sinopie museum, a system that contains and prepares to the “miracle” of the huge emptiness of the monumental complex, as it was in Rome for the San Pietro Square before the realization of Via della Conciliazione 7. In reference to the actual configuration, the collocation and combination of the different buildings – the holy complex and the hospital – that border Piazza dei Miracoli identifies the relationship between some fundamental museum functions: the Enlightenment roots (that collects the antique remains and the burial-grounds of some famous people), the didactic-conservative of the Sinopie museum and, finally, the innovative one that sets out in continuity to the artistic and scientific culture represented by a museum open to multidisciplinarity and multiculturality.

Intervention area Convention Hall Urban walls Arno River

Military barracks Old town area Pedestrian area Botanical garden

Economy area of San Cataldo Cisanello Hospital Railway Old river port De Medici’s Arsenals Transforming area

Fig. 2 – The intervention area of the city of Pisa (Reference: Bohigas, 2007)

6. The same historical genesis confirms the interconnection with the monumental system of the Cathedral dome: built about twenty years before the Holy area from the same architect (Giovanni di Simone), the Santa Chiara Hospital is the opposite limit to the monumental quarter; in a symbolic key, the Holy area and the Hospital represent the terms of the dialectic of the cycle “life-death-resurrection”. The old hospital, in facts, is the place of transit and suffering, preamble to death and, then, to the eternal life, shadow space compared to the abstract and metaphysical light of the Heavenly Jerusalem, whose image is traditionally perceived in an ancillary way referring to the “wonder” of the square monuments: this area gains, therefore, a relative identity in reference with the other laic character, represented by the city. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. 7. The overlook of the new Santa Chiara quarter will be a fundamental balcony, a loggia – a shadow room – a huge public belvedere, external extension of the museum and suspended on the Theatrum Basilicae . This idea decodes the tradition of view and landscape painters of the 18th and 19th century that concerned the area as field limes , pause place, from which observing the “miracle” of the Holy area. Real theatre, to quote the famous Theatrum basilicae Pisanae , printed in Rome in the year 1705, that is a precious cultural reference of the actual redevelopment project, because it documents the first attempt of global interpretation of the square monuments and, generally, of the beginning of the process of consciousness raising from the city past. The ideation center on which the redevelopment projects are based is the objective of ransoming to a full public use the spaces of the old hospital with the volumetric integrations that follow the previous urban system, forming a functional connection in parallel to the square and in the direction North-South. The projects are inserted uninterruptedly with the Medical School and the Giardino dei Semplici, facing Via Roma, one of the principal roads of the old town. The strong relationship refers to the tradition of the Pisan Studies that from Fibonacci to Galilei, up to Pacinotti and Fermi, made Pisa a world disciplinary reference. An higher interaction between these two elements determine a sort of Wunderkammer at the urban scale, reinforcing the university scientific culture pole of Pisa. This issue is at the base of the functional choices around which the high quality and mixed (residential, commercial, services) settlement is built, both for the most recent history testimonies and for the new insertions. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. Between the largely shared indications contained in the Planning and programming document, Ppd (in Italian, Documento di Programmazione e Pianificazione, Dpp), it is possible to identify two principal themes that have been used as interpretation key of the planning strategy of the area both from the Township of Pisa and in the presented projects, referring to the development principle and coherently to the implications of the Structural Plan. First of all, the development of the programming agreement is a result of the Structural Plan and of the new interests framework that emerges from the discover of the roman ships, totally reshaping the city perspectives 8, as well underlined from the museum itinerary scheme of the Ppd, from the recovery plan of the city barracks and from the richness of the cultural supply system, that will be noticeably increased with the effects of that agreement. The second issue consists of the functional relationship between the Santa Chiara Hospital and Piazza dei Miracoli and the balance relationship between these two fundamental urban elements.

Fig. 3 – Aerial view of the Santa Chiara area and of the neighborhood (Reference: Snozzi, 2007)

8. With this agreement (whose respect has been carefully followed from the local Public Administration and, therefore, it has reached the results previously foreshadowed) the city is coming out from its long exile, absolutely not lacking of astonished tourists (or inattentive consumers) and not devoid of an inner life, in which the knowledge city represented a significant presence in the world; anyway, an exile from the most significant cities. With the Programming agreement the city is reshaped as a new cultural and hospitality center that tries to remove the city from its postcard limits and return it to its citizens and tourists with the traces, the memories, the testimonies of the most significant phases of its history. The city moves with the times and reallocates in its external part the public functions that need new technologies and modern organization systems (as police and military stations and hospitals) and contemporarily expands its systems of knowledge and life quality, addressed to its citizens and to the pilgrims interested into the “third millennium grand-tour” and to the “culture and science pilgrims”, that, accordingly to Galileo’s teachings, need space and time and observing conditions. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. Railway station Airport

Fig. 4 – The principal public mobility system of the city of Pisa (Reference: Zucchi, 2007)

Parking areas Public transport on tires

Railway station

Airport

Fig. 5 – The total accessibility system of the city of Pisa (Reference: Zucchi, 2007)

Fig. 6 – Evolution of the Santa Chiara area between 1872 and the present configuration (Reference: Canali, 2007)

2. Description of the local real estate market

Pisa has always been a dynamic and lively city, also thanks to its innovation drive promoted by its important universities, that assure a stable presence of workers graduated in technical and scientific subjects. Because of this exceptionally active nature Pisa has a very high level structure of production, that is strongly diversified and it is able to react to the crises that the world economy had to face in these last years. Many industries knew how to contain the crisis, creating the bases of a development that is recently giving interesting effects: the best economic results have been reached in sectors as the constructions division and the real estate field. The economic system of Pisa is characterized by the presence of different activities in the industrial, touristic and food sectors: in the last years the production industry has been revalued with its potential. As a matter of fact, the industrial division holds a fundamental economic role, even for the significant existence of some relevant industrial districts 9. Pisa is the principal support center for the services to enterprises: it is suitable to functions as assistance and promotion to the industrial development for small and medium business, thanks to infrastructures as the Technological park, the National Research Council pole (in Italian, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR), the Universities and the airport. Moreover, the local Public Administrations provide incentives for the local direct investments, exploiting the potential elements that the entire city offers: the geographic position of Pisa and the local professional and research skills could promote a strong process of development, innovation and growth even for the entire national level. As a matter of fact, the real estate market of Pisa is ever-growing: this constant increase partially depends on the consistent presence of university students and partly on the enlargement of the industrial parks of the city itself and of its province. The real estate market area, in which the Santa Chiara Hospital complex is placed, is positively influenced from the centrality of the district in study. Moreover, this localization is incredibly sought both for its monumental beauties and for the huge confluence of people attracted from the monuments themselves. The Santa Chiara complex takes easily advantage of all the services offered from the city (particularly, of the ones for touristic functions related to the fruition of Piazza dei Miracoli), as it is at about two kilometers to the railway station and it is connected also to the airport “Galileo Galilei” through frequent urban bus rides. This area, as by now most of the old towns, has problems with parking zones on public land and car spots on streets, as they are mostly reserved to residents or they are payment-places (Piazza dei Miracoli is closed to traffic). Referring to the collection about the local values of the real estate market in order to predict the market price levels in the following analysis phases for the selling and renting of the assets to be evaluated, the research group analyzed different data produced from independent institutes, with the aim to establish an affordable average value for the different uses. More in depth, the research team used the information given by the real estate market observatory of the Italian Land Register Agency 10 for the Township of Pisa, by the real estate assets price collection of the Pisa office of the Business Agents Federation 11 for the year 2008 and by the real estate market observatory of the Pisa office of the Professional Real Estate Agents Federation 12 for the year 2008. From the analysis of the available data it came out that the development produced in the period 2000-2005 in the residential division registered a setback (that is still enduring with significant market fluctuations), caused prevalently from a demand downturn, as all the investors, that from the 2000 bet on this market sector to obtain a significant profitability, have extremely diversified their funds, investing again in some areas as Siena and Pisa, where the expectations, related to the economic advantages that buildings are able to ensure, are high and where earnings are comparable to gains of non residential assets. The considerable increase of rents, registered since the Euro came into force, in all the Tuscan provinces and in the principal cities, determined a stable decrease of the percentage of families interested into renting houses; the most significant downturns were recorded in the central areas of the main towns and of the townships with more than 10.000 inhabitants, already characterized by a restricted market where, apart from the rents

9. The sectors in crisis are: shipping, footwear, automotive, chemistry and pharmaceutical, leather goods. 10. In Italian, Osservatorio del mercato immobiliare, Omi, di Agenzia del Territorio. The reference is the Micro-zone n. 1, with the last available time indication of the 1st semester 2009; the area in study is in between of two different zones, or better the central area – called B1 – and the mid-central part – C1 –, even if most of the buildings belongs to the first part of the city. 11. In Italian, Federazione Italiana Mediatori Agenti d'Affari, Fimaa. The references are the areas of Santa Maria, San Martino, San Francesco. 12. In Italian, Federazione Italiana Agenti Immobiliari Professionali, Fiaip. The references are the areas of the old town and of Porta Lucca. increase, the supply has not been able to conform to standards of higher quality required from the demand. This occurrence interested principally Livorno, Grosseto and Lucca, where the difference between required rents and offered quality was higher, but also in some areas of the old town of Florence, in which the most considerable increase of rents were recorded; not only the condition for which the interest rates on mortgages remain low promotes the shifting from renting to purchasing, but also the high costs of living and then the lower buying power of families. The unbearable rents created social anxiety or worse strain, caused by the tough pressure given by the low income families, considering the lack of available flats, whereas the small owners expressed dissatisfaction and doubts for the duration of contracts: that is why the demand for short term rents, instead, is not decreasing, especially in Siena, Florence and Pisa. As a matter of fact, in the three main towns, that are characterized by the presence of activities related to universities, hospitals and research centers, the rent market could count on a wide catchment area, formed by university students, people that moved because of job reasons and other temporarily users: this kind of demand, numerically significant, could shift the market and ensure an interesting performance, but it is often interested by informal negotiations with unregistered contracts. Moreover, in the principal cities, the rents remained in their increase trend, as quoted by the Forth report on the real estate market in Tuscany, published by Ance Toscana in 2006. Finally, all the mentioned trends are still continuing up till now, even if with some fluctuations of volumes and prices in the reference market. The office market reversed the trend, increasing the turnover in the period 2006-2008, after three years in a row of slowing down in the real estate cycles between the 2003 and the 2005, as a matter of fact, the proceeds of total sales in December 2005 amounted to about 320 million of Euros, realizing a 3% decrease referring to the 2004, year in which the business volume came through 330 million of Euros. The negative result was caused by the decrease of the number of transactions (-5,6% on a year base), reducing from 180.000 to 170.000 square meters, and to the limited increase of rates (less than the inflation) and of rents; moreover, the demand is increasingly selective in choosing the investments to be handled, fact that is determined by the enlargement of the demand requirements about the endowment of quality standards, but also by savings needs. As a matter of fact, most of the quoted trends are still enduring in the 2010, even if with some significant fluctuations of business volumes and prices in the reference market, due to specific uses and destinations. The prudent attitude of demand created longer processes of negotiations even in the most dynamic areas of Tuscany, as Florence and its hinterland (that concern most of the regional market), whereas the request for spaces for small professional offices or for services to people is still operating; finally, the division of second-hand offices is still decreasing, even after the reference period of the Forth report on the real estate market in Tuscany, published by Ance Toscana in 2006. The division of industrial buildings is particularly affected by the whole economic climate and mood, as a matter of fact, the entire sector suffers from a oversupply situation both for used assets and for new or recent goods. The national market at the end of the 2005 broke the level of 4 million Euros, with a decrease of the business volume, referring to the 2004, of the 3,6 percent, trend that is still ongoing, with several fluctuations. Even selling prices and rents are still decreasing, although a significant, but brief increase registered in the 2006 (with sales proceeds of about 4,3 million Euros). At the regional level, areas with a strong vocation to manufacturing productions in recession (as in the textile division and in sectors as the clothing industry, mechanics and goldsmiths) are in comparison to other zones that are demonstrating significant signals of resistance, in particular, in the districts of the food farming and electronics production, supporting the local industrial division of the real estate market and limiting its reductions. The prices of the last years fluctuated around weak increases and decreases (since the 2005, the first year of fluctuation, with a reduction of the 0,5 %) and the tendencies for the immediate future are inclined to a stabilization of the rates on the actual values. The commerce division, that is usually anti-cyclical and in countertrend referring to the offices and industrial sectors, is, with the residential market, is the one that suffered less from the economic situation, principally thanks to the consumers resistance; this division was the best performer of the non residential markets from the 2004-2005 up till now and the forecasts for the immediate future are stable. In Tuscany, the sector is always moving in a clearer way to two different directions: the large and short retailers. The large-scale retail trade is offering positive perspectives to international and national investors that want to invest both in existing centers and in new development projects, especially in the peripheral areas of the main cities and in the provincial zones with Townships of higher intensity of inhabitants, with the opening of innovative buildings, outlets and retail parks (Ance Toscana, 2006).

OMI FIMAA FIAIP Market values in €/sm min max min max min max New residential buildings 2250 3300 3000 4000 3000 3800 New commercial buildings 2500 3800 1400 2500 2000 2200 New office buildings 2000 2950 2000 2800 2000 2300 Tab. 1 – Market values trend in the principal data collection analyzed in the research (Reference: our own elaboration on data collected by the Land register agency, Fimaa and Fiaip) I semester 2009